Hans and his SCA150 adventure in the Dakotas.

[hhaase]

Livestock Listing. (Updated 11/8/2021)

Current Fish.
1x Percula Clown. Added Summer 2019
1x Firefin Goby Added Summer 2019
1x BangGai Cardinal (Unknown Stocking Date)
2x Kupang Damsels (Unknown Stocking Date)
1x Lawnmower Blenny Added Spring 2023
1x Diamond Goby Added Spring 2023

Current Corals and Inverts.
Kenya Tree Added Summer 2019
Sarcophyton Added Summer 2019
ORA Pink/Green Damicornis Added Summer 2019
Red Monti Cap Added Fall 2019
Orange Chalice Added Spring 2021
Hammer Coral Added Spring 2021
Blue/Green Ricordia Added Summer 2021
Faded Blue Favia #1 Added Fall 2019
White Eye Favia #2 Added Spring 2021
Purple/Green Acro Added Spring 2021
Acropora Millepora Added Spring 2021
Duncan Corals. Added Summer 2021
Battlecorals Battleberry Monti Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals Pink Sandollar Monti Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals Forest Fire Digi Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals Blue Crust Acropora Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals Acroberry Acropora Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals ORA Bird of Paradise Seriatapora Added Fall 2021
Battlecorals Watermellon Stylophora Added Fall 2021
Hulk Torch Coral Added Spring 2023
Derasa Clam Added Spring 2023

Cleanup Crew
1x Brittle Star Added Summer 2019
2x Money Cowry Added Fall 2020
2x Tiger Conch Added Summer 2021
2x Pincushion Urchins. Added Spring 2022
Many snails. Cerith, Dwarf Cerith, Astrea, Nassarius, Bumblebee, Turbo
Misc Hermits. Various reef-safe hermits.

Past Livestock Losses.
6x Green Chromis: All 6 bought at the same time, all dead in two weeks. Reason Unknown.
1x Lawnmower Blenny: Jumped out
1x BangGai Cardinal: Reason unknown
1x Derasa Clam: Reason unknown
1x Green Alveopora Added Spring 2021, Lost late-fall 2021. Slowly wasted away.
1x Paletta Pink Tip Acropora Added Fall 2021, lost Winter 2021. Slowly wasted away.
1x Joker 2.0 Acropora Added Fall 2021, lost Spring 2022. Slowly wasted away, covered by algae. \
1x Cleaner Shrimp Added Summer 2019, lost Winter 2022, likely due to age.

 

[hhaase]

So I picked up this used Kessil A360W-E Tuna Blue, which the previous owner was replacing due to a failed fan. I expected just to have to do a fan replacement on it..... the light had other plans. I checked the old fan with a 9v battery first, and it was spinning nice and strong with no noise. I knew I had to dig a bit deeper.

Turns out it had a failed transistor on the circuit board that controlled the on/off for the fan. Since I do electronics work a lot, I happened to have a compatible piece on my parts shelf, and I even had silicone conformal coating to restore the water resistant coating. It's all fixed up now and fan is working great, so I've got me another light to fill in the center shadowing. It also lets me test if I want to go Kessil or not when it comes time to replace the old MaxSpect's.

One thing I have to say is that Kessil has build quality that is just unbelievably better than the MaxSpect originally had. It's not even a close comparison. Every element of the Kessil light is better built. Better circuit boards, better parts, better workmanship.

 

[hhaase]

Time for a Bad News / Good News thread.

Bad News:
I moved my Alveopora into the 'loss' list. It never really thrived in the tank and slowly wasted away over about a six month period. Nothing I did seemed to give it any spark of life and last week it finally seems to have died. Though I never did any target feeding except a few initial attempts that it didn't respond to.

Good News:
The rest of my corals have really gone into a brisk growth phase. Hopefully some photos this week. And I haven't even put in that extra Kessil yet. Not sure how to mount it yet with the eurobracing.

What I originally thought was a Montipora Spongodes now appears to be an Acropora Tenius instead. And hooooooo boy is it a happy little coral! The original encrusting chunk had started growing a couple of branches so I decided to epoxy it in place on the rockwork. It's almost completely encrusted over the epoxy at this point and is sprouting branches all over the place. Turning into a nice fuzzy acro to be honest. Looks a bit messy at the moment though, I kinda broke off a couple branches when I was epoxying it in, so I glued them down next to the main chunk. Didn't take long before it all grew back together into a single colony.

The rest of my BattleCorals are also settling in nicely and seem to be good and stable. I get the distinct impression they're all growing, some faster than others, but I haven't compared back to the original photos to see for sure. I'm slowly trying to find homes for all of them on the rock work but have only put one in place permanently.

I don't know if I took any pictures of my Duncan when I got it, originally with two heads. I've spotted two more heads recently and I suspect there are more I just can't see. Happy Day! More signs that I'm at least halfway competent at this point. It seems to like where I've got it, so I think I'll epoxy the frag plug in place and call that the permanent home.

Oh, and The Little Monti That Could? It's going through another growth phase. I can't tell if it's got a branch coming up, or it's encrusted around a vermitid snail, but it looks healthy so I won't bother it unless I see a need to.

 

[hhaase]

This guy has reached the point I'm going to have to start taking extensions off the macro lens, it's almost too big to fit in the frame. The growth form is definitely changing now too, where the branches are starting to extend out as opposed to sprouting as many new branches. It's been in the tank 8 months now, and I can't wait to see it in the summer. Should really start having some presence in the tank soon.

This Duncan is starting to expand rapidly too. A month or so ago it had two heads, now I count at least 6, possibly more. The frag plug is just kinda jammed into the rock at the moment, but it's so happy in this location that I'll be epoxying it in place soon. For something that I picked up on a whim it's quickly becoming one of my favorites.

"The Little Monti That Could". I know it'll take forever before I have big sweeping plates, but again this is such a huge turnaround from my low point in the tank when it bleached out so bad I thought everything was dead. Then it took another hit with the cyano outbreak. Now it's popping up with new polyps all the time.

Another case of a coral about to outgrow the current macro lens setup. This acro had zero branches in April when it first went into the tank, just a small chunk that I cut off a frag plug next to another coral. Hence why I thought it was a monti of some type. Really interesting in how this one grows. It sprouts out about 1/8"-1/4" at a time with bright white and plain tips, then fills them in with polyps. Very easy to see when it's going through a growth spurt. Another coral that I can't wait to see in another six months based on how it's been growing lately.

I have to keep an eye on the tank, I'm seeing hints of cyano again. I may re-dose with chemi-clean to make sure it doesn't come back. But I'll monitor for a bit more first before making that decision.

Lighting is tough for photos where the "Joker 2.0" is sitting. Starting to see growth on this one now that it's settled into place. It's got plenty of light for growth.... just not from an angle that I can put the camera to see it. I expect this to have some fairly long branches so I placed it accordingly.

 

[hhaase]

Text report for today, as I haven't updated in a while.

I've just been leaving things alone for the most part, doing basic maintenance, and letting the ecosystem settle for the past few months. Though there are a few small changes I'll have to update on with some fresh photos. When I say basic maintenance though, I mean basic. Occasional water changes and cleaning the skimmer, keeping the dosing containers full, and that's about it. The tank seems to be happy with what I'm doing.

I did add some more rock, picking up a 5lb box of the Two Little Fishies STAX rock. Nice stuff actually, I made a little arch to replace the frag rack I had been using. I was in danger of a few frags growing enough to attach to the rack. My Banggai Cardinal really likes hanging out inside the arch.

I also added a pair of pincushion urchins to try and help knock down my vermetid snail issue, and to help keep the rock clean in general, which seems to be working. The urchins are doing well, the vermetid snails are definitely down in number. These suckers are definitely the bulldozers that they're advertised to be. Really chew on coraline algae too. So far I'm quite happy with this addition.

I did lose one of my BattleCorals, the Paletta Pink Tip. I wasn't surprised though as it had slowly been fading right from the start. I knew it might be a tricky one based on the captions on the Battlecorals website. Compared to my previous tank, my coral success rate is significantly better than it had been.

Most of the other corals are doing very well. Most of the more established corals seem to be accelerating in growth now, with good color. The larger BattleCoral colonies are also thriving. The smaller frags are growing and looking healthy as well, they just haven't reached a size yet where they start to properly grow out. The Duncan is up to about a dozen heads now, from the original two. Even my Kenya Tree is finally starting to thrive..... the urchins knocked it into a new spot and it seems to be very happy there. There's only three frags really that haven't moved into a rapid growth phase, but they are growing and look healthy.

The pink/green Damicornis is turning into a proper colony at this point, as are a couple of the Acros.

 

[hhaase]

The conductivity probe on the profilux died.

I'm just going to take the thing out and not replace it, I never really found a way to understand what the numbers on it meant anyway. Was completely useless to me.

 

[reeftwincities]

Everything looks to be coming along. Great work! Some of those frags are growing into nice colonies for sure!

 

[hhaase]

Right side rock pile, or at least the best photo I can take of it. The ORA Bird of Paradise has grown tremendously since October. My "Raised from the Dead" Monti Cap on the right side of this is doing fantastic. It's crazy seeinghow much the Chalice has grown. I'd like the Hammer to grow out more, but it is slowly growing. And the Monti on the left side of this rock pile is another slow grower, but it is growing.

Urchin keeps knocking those Ricodia off the pile. It's quite annoying.

 

[hhaase]

This is the new center archway that I did with some TLF Stax rocks. Still in the ugly phase, and it doesn't help my nitrates are struggling to stay measurable.

But my Duncan can clearly be seen here. Up to 10 heads now! Was only two when I bought it. The Favia on the right was originally 6 polyps, and it's growing pretty aggressive right now. The two Acro frags up top are growing slow, but they are growing steady. These are the Acroberry and Blue Crush from BattelCorals. You can slightly see the Pink Sanddollar Monto on the left edge, behind the Duncan. It's also growing slow but steady. It'll probably be 6 months till this rockpile really starts to look good and gets through its ugly phase.

 

[hhaase]

This is the left side rock pile. Visible from left to right on the rocks are the Forest Fire Digi, an un-named Acro, another un-named Acro, and the Ora Pink/Green Damicornis.

All of these have grown fantastically the past six months. The Digi has about tripled in size. The left Acro is just plain exploding from what was a tiny little lump I originally thought was encrusting Monti. The Acro in the top-center is the one I started all those progress photos of a year or so ago. The Damicornis is bigger than my fist now, and it started at around the size of my pinky toe. The Favia on the sand is doing well too, even if it doesn't really LOOK like it's growing a lot, it's still considerably bulkier than it used to be.

There's a couple more frags on this rock, one of which is only slightly visible, and those haven't really taken yet. They're alive and I'm not concerned about them dying off..... but they aren't really growing either.

So while some aren't doing as well as I'd like on this rock, others have been growing exponentially and are turning into proper colonies in short order. I'd have to say I'm quite happy with how this tank is progressing, particularly in the last six months.

 

[hhaase]

No fun pictures today, just a text update.

I've been lazy, and have been skimping on maintenance, and the tank knows it. Corals haven't been as happy as they could be, but aren't suffering either. They just have been in a status-quo situation.

I'm also having some GHA issues, nothing terrible, but enough that I'm paying attention again. On a good note, I've actually been a lot better about my water changes. I've been doing the water changes pretty regularly, 20 gallons or so every two weeks. So that's been masking some of the issues I'm having.

I haven't done a complete water test sequence in far too long. It's not too out of whack, but I'm low on nitrates again (surprise surprise), low on magnesium, low KH, high on calcium. The KH I traced to my dosing line being partly pulled out of the container. Calcium I dialed back about 20%. Magnesium I normally have to do some manual dosing, so no big deal. That and I started dosing nitrates again.

I'm going to have to sort out a better method for maintaining nitrates. The spectracide works for me but there's got to be a better method.

 

[hhaase]

Well, today got unexpectedly exciting, in a bad way, I discovered an un-anticipated failure mode that nearly cost me the tank, but has since been rectified. I found the display tank very slowly overflowing when I got home from work, with a nearly empty sump.

The weir teeth on the overflow were clogged up with hair algae, causing water to not drain back to the sump, which also kicked in the ATO for just a wee bit more fun. Thankfully the alarm timer kicked in on the Profilux, and killed the flow from the ATO, or I could have had a huge mess on my hands. So I only had about 5 gallons drain onto the floor instead of 25-30 gallons. I initially couldn't figure out the problem, as the emergency pipe on the overflow wasn't flowing, but killing the power allowed the tank to drain back into the sump via the return lines until I could figure it all out.

I cleaned out the teeth, but also removed the cover from the internal portion of the overflow. So if the teeth get clogged again it will allow more flow capacity and should keep the problem from recurring. I also kept meaning to get a leakage sensor, so that's going to move up my priority list in the immediate future.

I'm still fighting that GHA, though now we're at least at a stalemate and the algae isn't necessarily spreading, if anything it is slowly receding. I'm also seeing chaeto growing in the display tank, so I want to get the refugium light going again to see if I can actually grow some chaeto properly this time.

 

[hhaase]

72 hour report after my flood issue. Tank appears no worse for wear, no obvious issues with livestock and everything running fine after correcting the issues.

As a side note, I did have one of my main return pumps quit on me yesterday. All the pre-planning with the dual pump system served me fantastic. Water never stopped circulating between the tank and sump. Once I found out the pump wasn't running I just turned a couple valves to bypass it and can take care of the bad pump at my leisure while still getting the exact same water flow.

 

[hhaase]

Been a long time since I've had a full-tank shot. I don't think I ever showed the revised mounts for my lights, nor the kessil I added in to help with the lack of light in the center of the tank.

Looking back on some old photos, I'm astounded that I've had such good growth on some of my pieces. I'll go through them in a later set of posts. Though coloration isn't great on a lot of them, quite a bit of pale coral even if it is growing well. I would like to add an aggressively growing stick Acro of some type, as just about everthing I currently have seem to be more dense growth patterns. That'll have to wait till spring when it's more conductive to shipping things.

I'm very heavily looking into some new lights finally. These cobbled-together DIY's have done fairly well but they are definitely still in the style of early 2000's LED's with simple on/off timers for the various lighting groups. They otherwise have none of the modern control features and I do still suffer from spotlighting effects. They served their purpose and got my tank going but I may be ordering some AI Blades soon.

Lastly, now that I do have some growing, I added a big chunk of chaeto to the sump and four turbo snails. I need to get this hair algae under control and I am loosing the battle right now. I also put a filter sock back in as well to polish up the water.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Been a long time since I've had a full-tank shot. I don't think I ever showed the revised mounts for my lights, nor the kessil I added in to help with the lack of light in the center of the tank.

Looking back on some old photos, I'm astounded that I've had such good growth on some of my pieces. I'll go through them in a later set of posts. Though coloration isn't great on a lot of them, quite a bit of pale coral even if it is growing well. I would like to add an aggressively growing stick Acro of some type, as just about everthing I currently have seem to be more dense growth patterns. That'll have to wait till spring when it's more conductive to shipping things.

I'm very heavily looking into some new lights finally. These cobbled-together DIY's have done fairly well but they are definitely still in the style of early 2000's LED's with simple on/off timers for the various lighting groups. They otherwise have none of the modern control features and I do still suffer from spotlighting effects. They served their purpose and got my tank going but I may be ordering some AI Blades soon.

Lastly, now that I do have some growing, I added a big chunk of chaeto to the sump and four turbo snails. I need to get this hair algae under control and I am loosing the battle right now. I also put a filter sock back in as well to polish up the water.

I like the way your tank is looking!!

 

[hhaase]

I like the way your tank is looking!!

Thanks! I really appreciate it. It's really close to what I was envisioning and I'm still on the learning path in some ways.

I'm increasing my ALK dosing again as I do struggle to keep it above 7. Calcium is high still, not as bad as in the past, but still high. Not reducing calcium or nitrate dosing at this point though until I know the effect from the increased ALK dose.

I'm also adding new columns to my test results spreadsheet, I'm adding columns for the dosing levels so that I have a record of how much I'm adding of everything. This spreadsheet has been great for helping me see trends in the tank, but I really wish I knew what changes I had made. Would help me to dial in the dosing better if I knew what it was during previous high and low trends tests.

 

[hhaase]

Starting to prep for the light replacement, oddly enough, by finishing a few things on my DIY lights. I want to have them in a condition so I can toss them up for sale in case somebody wants an affordable set of basic LED’s. These would work quite well on something like a 90

So I’m printing a couple fan shrouds.

 

[hhaase]

Pair of AI Blade 57" Grow fixtures are ordered.

Kinda odd to be honest. 3D printing some parts for my old lights, meanwhile I just ordered the new ones. But partly I just want to see what the end result of the old lights would be. Probably the last MaxSpect G2's in the world still running.

 

[hhaase]

2 of the 57" AI blades are on the tank now. I'm glad I only got 2, and not 3.
First impression is that I flipping love these lights and that a third blade is likely overkill.

The PAR numbers are spectactular. At higher output levels I'm measuring 250-300 par on the sand bed, and over 500 at my higher mounted acropora. So I dialed it down to 60% for the time being, and even that is giving me huge increases in par compared to the old lights. These lights aren't just filler strips. As most of the other reviews have been saying, the blades are perfectly suitable as primary lights.

The lighting is just so smooth and even across the tank, all the harsh shadowing is gone. My corals will love that. The installation is so much more aesthetically pleasing. These are the lights I've been hoping for since I started planning this tank four years ago.

Will take me some time to dial in the white balance settings on these but man does the tank look great with these lights (if you ignore the hair algae of course).

 

[hhaase]

I was inspired by the filter mount offered by Klir for their DI-4 roller system, but not for the roller, I really liked how it's used as a filter sock mount.

I was less inspired by the price. So I fired up the 'ole FreeCAD and made my own version on the 3D printer. Works perfectly! Lets me change the filter sock super easy and looks almost professional. I'm already working on an updated version, so when I get that all printed out I'll show you all what it looks like outside of the tank. Once the design is finished, I'll upload it over on Thingiverse or Printables, at that point maybe I'll start a separate thread in the 3D printed section here as well.